What to read / What we’re reading this week
14 May 2026, 00:00 AM
What to read
Book Review: Nonfiction / Fara Dabhoiwala’s history misses the one thing that truly matters
1 May 2026, 00:00 AM
Non-fiction review
Reflection / Harper Lee at 100: An enduring echo of justice
28 April 2026, 20:10 PM
Literature
Tribute / Humayun Azad and the courage to dissent
24 April 2026, 00:00 AM
Books & Literature
Interview / Writing what silence carries: Mohua Chinappa on memory, pain, and inheritance
24 April 2026, 00:00 AM
Features
Not just child’s play: Bengal’s rhymes as cultural memory
13 April 2026, 20:12 PM
Culture
Book Review: Nonfiction / Love, wounds, and the making of ‘Hemingway’s Women’
10 April 2026, 00:00 AM
Books & Literature
An Ekushey Book Fair breaking with tradition
21 September 2025, 13:05 PM
Books & Literature
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / An outlandish jumble of cults, cannibalism, and colonial violence
19 March 2025, 18:00 PM
Books
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / The making of Bangladesh in the global sixties
19 March 2025, 18:00 PM
Books
From Rabindranath Tagore’s Chhinnapatra
Our boat was docked by a sandbank on the other side of Shelaidaha. It was a gigantic strip of sand where the contour of a river could be seen.
6 May 2022, 18:00 PM
Intuitions of Harmony: The Vibrant Vision of Rabindranath Tagore
Born in 1861, Rabindranath was brought up in a large family with an open, eclectic approach to culture, religion and the world of ideas. This receptivity to heterogeneous influences remained with him throughout his life, expressing itself in his thought, writings and practices
6 May 2022, 18:00 PM
The Sehri Tales prompt is a Rorschach test for participants
If there is one thing that worries me a little, it is that the strong trend for themes of sexual violence that began to appear during lockdown, continues to be favoured by a significant number of our domestic writers.
2 May 2022, 10:11 AM
A Season of Hope and Despair: Reminiscing My Dhaka University Days
I am one of the privileged few to have experienced Dhaka University—the nation’s citadel of higher education le plus excellent—from both sides of the spectrum, first as a student and then as an academic.
29 April 2022, 18:00 PM
Lies Woven in Olive Wreaths
Men wearing wreaths uphold their sacred emblem -
They extend an olive branch.
Hold round-table talks on their next daring conquest.
Fill banks with our blood. Build forts of crisp notes.
Offer helpless smiles to victims of wars that they sell.
They empty the bowels of our earth for oil,
tie a string from end to end
29 April 2022, 18:00 PM
She-wolf
The forest was still in the early hours of a cold autumn morning. The silence was broken only by the breeze through the trees and the restless trickling of a stream running through the middle of a clearing.
29 April 2022, 18:00 PM
Book charities to donate to this Eid
The pandemic has disrupted the businesses of struggling booksellers, many of whom are still reeling from their losses. There are organisations that are helping booksellers, book readers, and both.
28 April 2022, 07:03 AM
Shagufta Sharmeen Tania shortlisted for Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2022
“My story concerns the lost souls of a metropolis”, the author tells The Daily Star, “those magnificent beasts that cannot find their places in a growing, sprawling cityscape.”
25 April 2022, 10:47 AM
Aziz Super Market: A place that changed drastically
Once upon a time, Aziz Super Market use to be a hub for cultural and literature activities. A culture of “thought and creation” developed centring around the book stores. Be it the famous hangout of Ahmed Sofa or the office or balcony of LittleMag - there was always people hanging out with a cup of tea. Aziz Super Market was a place where people would not only discuss books or cinema but also make them; for instance, ideas of short films or songs, among others, originated there.
23 April 2022, 16:01 PM
The fault in our books: Why are Bangla books poorly edited?
What does our editorial process lack? Why can’t we hire good proofreaders? The answer lies in the economics of it.
23 April 2022, 11:25 AM
Parallel Realities, Peripheral Existences: Saikat Majumdar’s The Middle Finger
The intriguing image of a woman’s eye peering through a hole cut into the glossy book jacket suggests that there is more to Saikat Majumdar’s The Middle Finger than meets the eye.
22 April 2022, 18:00 PM
Humayun Kabir, Men and Rivers, and Faridpur
Writer, statesman and educationalist Humayun Kabir (1906-69) was born in Komarpur near Faridpur town. The childhood of this cosmopolitan intellectual was spent in a rural culture.
22 April 2022, 18:00 PM
Ramadan Maghfirat: How I channelled my rage into inspiration for Sehri Tales
I channelled my hurt, anger and frustration into poetry and flash fiction that had nothing to do with my agitator and her cronies.
21 April 2022, 10:20 AM
The longstanding fascination with Regency romance
How is it that the privileged lives of the British upper classes, in a period of time which lasted arguably less than a decade, have managed to leave behind such an impressive legacy in English literature?
18 April 2022, 13:54 PM
aqua green, your icy blue
now i see you in summer
the kind
that came, before rain
could
settle us
April, the beginning of it -
15 April 2022, 18:00 PM
“In the sky of knowledge, there are no borders”
“Today it seems to me that every festival in Santiniketan offered homage to the seasons in some form or other… Much later I learnt that the festivals of Santhals and other Adivasis are the expressions of respect for farming and forest life. There are forms of nature worship based on an advantage of the earth as a primal mother.”
15 April 2022, 18:00 PM
Baishakh Scenes from Days in Old Dhaka
The Baishakhi fairgrounds is just a stone’s throw away from the Doyagonj Bridge, where grandpa always takes Rony for afternoon walks.
15 April 2022, 18:00 PM
From Syed Shamsul Haque’s Stanzas of Summer & Spring
My city has turned off all its lights.
And then someone has muddied,
all the road-marks and signs.
15 April 2022, 18:00 PM
Amartya Sen’s ‘Home in the World’: The life of an intellectual
“When I was born, Rabindranath persuaded my mother that it was boring to stick to well-used names and he proposed a new name for me…Amartya”, writes the author and economist.
13 April 2022, 18:00 PM
A glimpse into post-Liberation War challenges
War-ravaged, Bangladesh faced crucial challenges centring nation building just after its birth.
9 April 2022, 18:00 PM